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WISH THEY MIGHT: Food service became showbiz at the Vogue theatre recently. That’s where Eric Pateman and Edible Canada staff prepared a dinner for Children’s Wish Foundation supporters at tables in the auditorium. Chaired by recruitment firm principal Lana Bradshaw, the event reportedly raised $165,000, enabling the foundation to increase its 22,000 grants to youngsters with life-threatening ailments. It also honoured seven-year-old Avery Carpenter who, after two open-heart surgeries at B.C. Children’s Hospital, opted for a family trip to Disney World. That echoed former “wish kid” Bradshaw’s choice of a Disneyland visit. Meanwhile, Bradshaw had another wish to answer. It entailed two-month-old Jack, who was experiencing a first break in mama’s hourly nursing regimen.

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BAITED: As regards stage-delivered foodstuffs, few top late actor John Barrymore’s response to one of the coughing audiences he detested. Reaching into his costume, he tossed a fish over the footlights, saying: “Chew on that, you walruses, while the rest of us get on with the libretto.”

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AUDI DOODY: Two other recruitment-firm owners, Sarah McNeill and Cheryl Nakamoto, benefited the Big Sisters of BC Lower Mainland at a wine-tasting and auction in the Burrard-at-Second Audi showroom. Along with O’Neill’s husband, MAC Marketing Solutions co-principal Cam McNeill, they were founding sponsors of the Grape Juice fundraiser in 2008. It helps Big Sisters meet the $2,000 annual cost of connecting mentor-companions and at-risk girls, of which 100 are reportedly wait-listed.

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BOINKING SEASON: Those susceptible to Spring Fever may take the Boink Day challenge. That’s the 10-hour event the city-based Spring Advertising firm will conduct on the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Georgia Street plaza March 20. To benefit the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society, the boink title refers to pogo sticks which are said to generate as much entertainment as the other kind.

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GLOWBAL WARMING: Make that housewarming, as Glowbal Group proprietors Emad Yacoub and wife Shannon Bosa Yacoub formally opened their 10th restaurant (they include the Black + Blue steakhouse) and third Trattoria Kitchen this week. Located in Bosa Properties’ Sovereign Tower at Kingsway and Willingdon in Burnaby, the Italian-themed eatery also serves the Westin Element hotel. Three Glowbal facilities will soon occupy Telus’ whole-block downtown development, with another “very big deal” pending locally, Yacoub said. He believed he’d snagged another in Toronto until a Vancouver-based restaurateur, likely Keg steakhouse mogul David Aisenstat, reportedly upped the ante by $2 million. As for the financial fruits of his exertions, Cairo-born Yacoub said: “I make the same as when I had only one restaurant,” namely the 2002 Glowbal Grill and Satay Bar on Mainland Street.

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OF THE TIMES: Proliferating neon artworks by Martin Creed, Ken Lum and now Toni Latour echo the brilliant commercial signs that made our streets famous until city hall’s tut-tutting killed that lively heritage.

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BOOZE BROTHERS: Mark James began brewing beer in 1994, when his younger Yaletown Brewing Company pub-restaurant’s patrons hadn’t been born. Today, his Red Truck Beer Company brands are in bars all over town. As befits a fellow rugby-football veteran, brother Craig also makes beer. So far, it’s been ginger beer and other premium soft drinks the Inform Brokerage food-service company he founded produces under licence from Britain’s Fentimans firm. Now Craig has upped the ante with Hollows & Fentimans Alcoholic Ginger Brew that is four per cent spirit by volume. Given craft brewing’s trend, maybe he’ll begin distilling gin to go with Fentimans Tonic Water.

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MAKE IT THERE: City singer Robyn McCorquodale will perform her multimedia Diary of a Piano Girl show at New York’s off-Times-Square Laurie Beechman Theatre on April 8.

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GO SEE: Searchers have still to locate HMS Terror, the consort to Sir John Franklin’s HMS Erebus that they revealed 11 metres underwater in the Arctic last summer. Starting Monday, though, both vessels may be seen at the Petley Jonesgallery in a painting by feted marine artist John Horton that portrays them ringed by ice prior to their 1848 date with destiny.

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HAPPY LANDING: On this day some years ago, a young man retrieved a suitcase containing his worldly possessions from Vancouver International Airport’s open-to-the-outside baggage rack. He had last seen it in Britain two days and five flights earlier. Friends hoisted the case into the trunk of a baby-blue Buick sedan and drove to the Granville-at-67th White Spot for car-service fish and chips. At the St. Regis Hotel later, the still-underage man learned to respect deceptively strong Canadian lager. Early the following morning, he secured the first of several jobs that would take him throughout Canada and to four continents. Thank you, Vancouver, for being all that a 10-year-old boy dreamed of. And thank you, White Spot, for a welcoming dish that remains a favourite today.

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DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Imagine the public response were congestion-tax politicos to put all that money and energy into redressing the deficiencies and sky-high fares of another form of transit: taxis.

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Town Talk: Fundraiser hauls in $165,000 for Children’s Wish Foundation

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